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Art Eggleton Biography

Art Eggleton has served the people of Canada and the city of Toronto in public office for over 45 years.

He was born, raised, and educated in Toronto where he worked as an accountant before being elected to City Council in 1969.

He served 22 years as a member of Toronto City Council and the Metropolitan Toronto Council, most of those years on the Executive Committees of both Councils. Between 1973 and 1980, he served as City Budget Chief, the member of Council responsible for financial matters. From 1980 to 1991, for 11 of those 22 years, he was Mayor of Toronto, the longest serving Mayor in the City’s history.

In addition, he served on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission, the Board of the Canadian National Exhibition, and numerous committees and task forces dealing with community issues.

In recognition of his service to the city, Mr. Eggleton received Toronto’s highest honour, the Civic Award of Merit, in 1992. In 2010, City Council named a park in the city’s west end, the Art Eggleton Park

Art Eggleton served 11 years in the Parliament of Canada as the member for York Centre in the City of Toronto. First elected in 1993, he was soon thereafter appointed to Cabinet where he served as President of the Treasury Board & Minister Responsible for Infrastructure (1993-1996), Minister for International Trade (1996-1997), Minister of National Defence (1997-2002) and Vice-Chairman of Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy (1997-2002).

In his final 2 years in the House of Commons (2002-2004), he served as Chair of the Greater Toronto Area Liberal Caucus, Member of the House Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Chair of the Canada-Israel Inter-Parliamentary Group.

On March 24, 2005, Art Eggleton was appointed to the Senate of Canada. Throughout his tenure he served as either Chair or Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology where he focused his work on social justice and health care reform issues. In 2012, he founded and convened the All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, a group consisting of Members of Parliament and Senators from all political parties.

Art Eggleton also serves in various volunteer capacities. He is Chair of the World Council on City Data which was created by the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto. In 2015 he was appointed by the Mayor of Toronto to be Chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Toronto Community housing for which a report was issued the following year. He is an honorary member, or member, of several non-profit boards and advisory committees.

He departed the Senate of Canada on September 29, 2018, having reached the mandatory retirement age.

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